30 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Humble Bees— C'AaWe* S. Davis, Decatur, 111.— 

 There are about fifty distinct species of Bumble or Hum- 

 ble Bees found in North America, of which rather more 

 than half the number occur in the United States, includ- 

 ing our new possessions in Alaska. In the immediate 

 neighborhood of Rock Island we have taken about ten 

 different species. The species differ notably in the 

 .amount of yellow markings, but have all of them the 

 same general appearance; they differ also in size. 



AS with all other social insects, there are three dis- 

 tinct forms in every species of Humble Bee, like the 

 drones (or males), the queens (or perfectly fertile fe- 

 males) and the workers (or partially fertile females) 

 among the honey-bees. Among the Humble-bees, it is 

 only the queens or large females that live through the 

 winter and start fresh nests in the spring; the workers 

 or small females always diy_in the fall. These last, ft 

 the most part, only differ ft-om the queens in being 

 about two-thirds their size . It is the queens alone that 

 are seen in early spring 'lying round apple blossoms, 

 etc. , the workers not l.eing born till later in the year. 



The specimens you send are genuine Humble-bees — 

 workers — and belong all of them to our commonest spe- 

 cies in the U. S., the Peimsylvania Humble-bee (Bom- 

 htis pennsyloanicus . De Geer). This kind makes its nest 

 in the ground; and there were probably several of their 

 nests in your hay-field, which your hay-making opera- 

 tions distiu'bed. Hence they attacked your teams, as a 

 hive of honey-bees will fight if you disturb them. You 

 state yourself that they troubled you a good deal while 

 m.iking hay, and say nothing about their disturbing 

 your teams at any other time or in any other place. No 

 doubt if you had let them alone, they would have let 

 you and your horses alone. You must not blame them 

 forfightingfortheirfamilies. AYeijresumeyou woulddo 

 the same if our Indian friends were to make an on- 

 slaught upon your household gods. 



With the exception of a few solitary bees (belonging 

 to the genera Ealktus and Andrena), which are known 

 as " Sweat-bees," and having a taste for human sweat 

 often get under folks's shirts in the hot summer weather 

 and sting if roughly handled, there is no kind of Bee or 

 Wasp that does not let man severely alone, if man will 

 be good enough to do the same by him. And what is 

 true of man, is equally true of the different animals do- 

 mesticated by man. 



As with all Bees and Wasps , Including the Honey-bee, 

 the males of all the Humble-bees have got no sting at 

 all. In the case of certain species, the male Humble- 

 bee haunts flowers for the sake of the honey and pollen 

 found therein; in the case of other species, they fly idly 

 about till they die of starvation , as we have observed to 

 be the practice of the male of your species. In no case, 

 however, does any male Humble-bee, or indeed any 

 male Bee or Wasp belonging to any species, gather up 

 provisions for the nest. Like the red Indians, the males 

 are too chivalrous to work themselves, and it is upon 

 the females that all the labor of providing for the family 

 dbvolves. 



Insects for sale—//. M. &., Chicago, 111.— Yes, we 

 understand that the extensive collection of N. A. 

 Lepidoptera, belonging to Mr. Geo. M. Peck, Is for 

 sale as a whole, or in part. It has been represented to 

 us as being one of the flnest private collections in the 

 country. Mr. Peck's address Is 129 Maiden Lane, New 

 York. 



Can Land be insured agrainst Cnt-wrorms 

 and other Insects \—A. Willis, Columhia, Mo.— In 

 answer to your queries, we regret to say that we know 

 of no kind of preparation which you can apply to your 

 clover land, so as to insure the nursery stock you 

 intend planting upon it next spring, ag.iinstthe depre- 

 dations of insects. The habits of these lilliputian Iocs 

 are so diverse, and we have to fight them in so many 

 different ways, that it is Impossible to apply any par- 

 ticular remedy or preventive that will affect them all. 

 We think that the best thing you can do, is to keep the 

 land plowed clean until you wish to use it. It was for- 

 merly supposed that a clean summer and fall fallow 

 would insure the crops planted the following spring, 

 against the attacks of Cut-worms. But since we have 

 shown that some of these worms, which are so injuri- 

 rious in May and June, are produced from eggs depos- 

 ited the same spring,* and that all Cut-worms do not 

 hatch the year before they attain their growth, it fol- 

 lows that this clean fivllow will be hut a partial preven- 

 tion of their attacks. 



* See Missouri Ent. Rep., pp. 72-3, nnd Amer. Enlomologisl, Vol. I, p. 188* 



Beetles named— 7". W. Hoyt. //-.—Your golden 

 beetles are Cassida aurichalcea, Fabr. (See Vol. I, Fig. 

 177 ) The beetle with blue-black wing-covers and 

 rufous head, thorax, legs and antenna, which "made 

 a sort of crackling noise and emitted smoke which 

 smelt like sulphur from the hind part of his body," is 

 one of our common Bombardier beetles, Brachinus 

 Amen'caniis,'Lec. Upon one occasion, when we were 

 collecting insects and— as often happens— saw at the 

 same moment two rapidly running beetles, both of 

 which we were desirous to capture, we thoughtlessly 

 put one of the two, which happened to be a Bombar- 

 dier, between our lips, so as to hold him securely while 

 we caught and disposed of the other one. Forthwith 

 he fired away the customary discharge of blue smoke 

 from his tail; and the next instant our lips felt as if a 

 bottle of the strongest Aquafortis had been emptied 

 upon them. But we were not to be fooled thus. The 

 more he blazed away the tighter we held him; and after 

 a copious discharge of saliva from our mouth, the dis- 

 agreeable sensation passed off in some five minutes, 

 without any further unpleasant results. 



Royal Horned-Caterpillar— W. C. Holmes, 

 Plattslurg, Mo.— The immense horned worm you send, 

 is the species which was illustrated in the colored plate 

 to our first volume. 



M. G. Kern, Supt. Lafayette Pari, St. Louis, Mo.— 

 The worm you found on Lilac is the same Royal 

 Horned-Caterpillar. The fiict of its occurring on 

 Lilac is, we believe, entirely new to science. 



Parsnip Caterpillar — T. W. Boyt, Jr., Ht. Louis, 

 Mo.— The worms found on Parsnip, which arc green, 

 marked with transverse black stripes and yellow dots, 

 and which protrude from the first segment, when dis- 

 turbed, two orange-colored strong-smelling processes, 

 are the larvae of our most common black swallow-tall 

 butteifly, Papilio asterias. Cram. 



Bad packing— />/•. W. W. Butterfeld, Indianapolis, 

 Ind. — Owing to your bad packing, the glass vial, con- 

 taining the •' aquatic insects," broke in Uncle Sam's 

 mail-bags, and not a solitary bug of the whole lot 

 reached us. We only hope that none of them crawled 

 into some young Udy's love-letters, while they were 

 I'ampaging round among the postal matter. 



